The Rammed Earth House (Real Goods Independent Living Book)

Rating:
Summary: Excellent resource!
Review: I found this book, as other books by Real Goods, to be very informative and easy for the layperson to comprehend. David presents the information in a reader friendly style, and the photos greatly enhance the script.

Rating:
Summary: "East Coaster" Looking to use Rammed Earth
Review: I purchased this book in order to find an optimistic source on the subject of rammed earth. David Easton does have a positive attitude about the subject. I enjoyed his enthusiasm. I enjoyed the 10 or so pages of color pictures and the many black and white pictures through the book. Like another reviewer, I felt the book lacked some good engineering sketches and some good pictoral illustrations of the forming systems. I was encouraged enough by his book to want to build a rammed earth house somewhere in the coming years. [e-mail].

Rating:
Summary: Excellent, lacks some detail on construction
Review: In Venezuela, South America, there is some interest in reviving an old method of cobnstruction, called "tapial" in spanish (rammed earth).Many old building remain in South America from the time of the spaniards. The book illustrates how a modern enginee, David Easton, in California, has taken over the problem of building with rammed earth in country where there is very little "tradition", hence know how, on building with rammed earth.The book lacks detail on the rammed earth system employed by the authors. More drawings and pictures would be very useful to translate modern technology to underdevelopped countries.Best regards,Miguel A. Megias, Professor of EngineeringUniversidad de CaraboboValencia, Venezuelae-mail [e-mail].v